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What Sells In A Sluggish Economy?

desmond — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:51:57 +0000

The unemployment rate is still high and the global economy is still in early recovery mode yet the number of web stores is still growing. Are these new online merchants crazy or do they know something others don’t?

Many people ask, “What is the best home business opportunity or what is the best Internet business to get into?” Maybe they have been asking the wrong questions. We’ll try to point out what the right questions are in this article. Most successful merchants aren’t geniuses. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to run a web store. In fact, successful merchants are those who ask the simplest questions every time they are confronted with a new challenge. In our current economic situation, the million dollar question is, “What would people buy when times are hard?”

The answer to that question is “Almost anything, but at a cheaper price.”

When times are good, almost everything sells because there’s obviously lots of money to throw around. But when times aren’t so good, people start to tighten their purse strings. However, everyone still needs to spend on necessities such as food, clothes, transportation, education, medication and utilities – because life has to go on.

In fact, there are even items that would not normally sell well during good times but will suddenly sell like hot cakes during difficult times like these. Here are a few examples of common items that have been given a little twist in terms of marketing:

Clothes

Used and off season clothes, believe it or not. You may not have thought about spending money on a lot of these clothes no matter how good they looked during better economic times, but a business opportunity seeker or two saw this opportunity coming as soon as the bubble burst and they’re now making money selling used and off season clothes to various niches – plus-size, maternity, kids, infants – the list goes on. Sounds obvious once it’s been pointed out, but it’s those who grasp opportunity when others give it a pass who find early (and sometimes lasting) success.

Many merchants source these types of clothes from countries such as Hong Kong, China and even Japan. This ensures the designs don’t look jaded even though they are not entirely new, because they are not found in the US. Moreover, margins for these items are pretty good.

The advantage online stores selling such items have over conventional stores is that the perception issue that some people may have about being seen buying used or off season apparel is pretty much a non-factor when shopping for clothes online.

Books

Used text books and e-books also sell well during a recession. No matter what the economic situation, people still need to study. In countries where education is not subsidized, college reading material can really set you back. The popularity of e-books has been growing steadily as well because people are becoming more environmentally-conscious. This is an additional marketing angle that you could use.

Toys

Speaking of environmental consciousness, parents are shying away from costly “plasticky” contemporary toys in favor of more “green” toys which come in the form of brain teasing puzzles and creative assembly fixtures. These puzzles and fixtures are made from recycled material and are free from chemicals so they’re good for the environment, safe for your child and lighter on your wallet.

Generic Brands

Selling generic alternatives of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) is also a hot idea. But remember, the margins for these items are not that high so you’ll have to sell them in volume. This also means that you’ll need quite a bit of storage space to store your inventory if you’re choosing to go this route.

There are many more items which sell well during a recession. The examples above are just to show you that you don’t really need to think that hard to figure out what to sell. All it takes is for you to be a business opportunity seeker with some foresight and a hint of creativity.Recent Posts:

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Shopping Bots – An Online Business Opportunity To Make More Money

desmond — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:06:37 +0000

Shopping bots are also known as price comparison sites. Consumers use shopping bots’ search engines to look for particular products and then compare prices and other available information such as consumer ratings and reviews.

Shopping bot and price comparison services are growing at a rate of over 30% per annum. Such services have become so popular that many have been bought up by industry giants like Microsoft.

Traffic arriving from such sites is targeted and the likelihood of a visitor ending up buying something is high. Which is why many online stores register with shopping bots. If you are an business opportunity seeker who has just started a web store with an easy shopping cart and you’re looking for an online business opportunity to make more money, making use of shopping bot and price comparison services could be very useful.

Is Your Store Prepared?

Registering your store with shopping bots can be a great way to get targeted traffic to your site but only if visitors see your store as providing quality products with appealing benefits and services along with competitive prices. This is because most shopping bot sites display results along with ratings. Visitors generally stay away from sites that are rated 2 and below out of a possible 5 stars. Because of this, it’s important to ensure that your products are always of a certain standard and that your before- and after-sales customer service is helpful and efficient.

Registration

Once you are confident that your store and products have what it takes to compete with the competition, you can then register your store with shopping comparison sites. Most price comparison sites have a very easy registration process. Once you have selected the appropriate category listing for your store, you can then upload your product feed. Shopping cart solutions like InstanteStore provide easy exports of product feeds for various different shopping comparison sites. Though some price comparison sites are free, a lot of sites charge on a per-per-click (PPC) basis or a flat rate for product placement.

SEO/Traffic Benefits

Comparison sites also work hard to ensure that their sites rank well with search engines. These sites put a good deal of effort into search engine optimization as well. Having your store and products listed on comparison sites provides your store and products with additional outlets for traffic and potential customers. Another good thing about comparison sites is that most of them are affiliated with a few other sites. In other words, if you register with one site, your store or products could be featured on the others for free.

Concerns

There are some concerns about shopping bots. The most common concern is that some bots do not update products feeds often enough. This has resulted in some shoppers landing on products pages only to find out that the product is out of stock or that the price has changed. To remedy this, submit products that have more or less stable pricing and stock levels, and/or update your store products at the comparison sites that you’ve registered with when your product catalog or prices change.

So if you are looking for an online business opportunity to make more money, shopping bots are a valid option. Just remember to make sure that your store’s products, services, and customer service are up to mark before you start signing up.

Have you registered with shopping bots before? Tell us about your experience.Recent Posts:

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